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Delabar Optioned, Pryor Coming?

After the game, the Mariners announced they were optioning Steve Delabar to Tacoma, but did not announce a corresponding roster move. With the day off tomorrow, they don’t have to make one until before the game on Friday. However, you can pretty much bet that the team is bringing up Stephen Pryor, the flamethrowing relief prospect who has been destroying the minor leagues this year.

It’s interesting timing, given that Brandon League has been temporarily removed from the closer’s role. Tom Wilhelmsen will probably get first crack at saves until League is reinstated as the closer, but if Pryor comes up and starts blowing people away with 100 MPH fastballs while the team is going with a closer-by-committee approach, it’s not impossible to think that he might just grab the job and run with it.

For Delabar, this is a chance for him to go down and work on his slider. He’ll be back as soon as the team trades League, and if he can get his slider to be a legitimate weapon against righties, he could be a good big league reliever.

Update: Confirmed – Stephen Pryor is getting called up. He’ll join the team on Friday.

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Comments

Mike Curto brings up the possibility that the move is dictated by the June 1 opt-out clauses that several of the Rainiers veterans have in their contracts. That is, if they’re not in the majors on June 1, they become free agents. It’s a possibility that they may go with a veteran like Josh Kinney instead of Pryor.

Whoever they pick (OK, except Ruffin, *who they’re not going to pick*) they need to make a 40-man move, so it’s not like Pryor or Kinney or Oliver Perez have a leg up in that regard. The 40-man move seems simple: move George Sherrill to the 60-day dl from the 15-day. They could also drop Yoervis Medina.

I’m surprised you’re not higher on Delabar considering his xFIP of 3.02. Do you think there’s something else to his home run problem other than bad luck? He even has a slightly above average groundball rate at 46.6%.

I would’ve rather seen Beaven optioned (or Noesi if the organization was unwilling to demote Beaven) and Iwakuma to the rotation. A bullpen of Kelley, Wilhelmsen, Delabar, Pryor, Furbush, League and Luetge has the makings of being elite and if Noesi was sent down he may benefit (more than anyone else on the roster) from the time in triple A to work on his breaking ball and pitch sequencing.

Delabar has the makings of a very good reliever, but he’s not there yet. It’s a very short career, but he’s got to show some signs of being able to shut down right-handers before his spot in the big league pen is truly safe.

He’s faced 77 RHB in his career and 8 have homered and they’ve got a wOBA over .400. There’s absolutely no shame in moving back to AAA to see if he can’t improve his slider or something.

Adam B. on
May 30th, 2012 11:01 pm

The Mariners bullpen should actually improve once Brandon League is dealt. Certainly Delabar should come back, but I don’t expect it will be long before the other reliever throwing triple-digit BBs in Jackson sees some time in Seattle.

Envision a bullpen consisting of:

Wilhelmson
Pryor
Capps
Kelley
Furbush
Luetke
Delabar

It brings a smile to this cynical face.

Grant on
May 30th, 2012 11:13 pm

Here are Delabar’s career numbers against right-handed batters:

K/9: 12.23, BB/9: 2.55, GB%: 40.9%, xFIP: 3.14

Like you said this is only a sample of 77 batters, but he has dominated right-handers during this stretch (with the exception of the home runs for which there is considerable reason to believe is an aberration). There is no way that a pitcher capable of putting up the numbers above (even in a small sample) has a true talent HR/FB of 42% or anything remotely approaching that.

Typical Idiot Fan on
May 31st, 2012 1:16 am

And yet, the other obvious result is he gets flattened by right handers. Probably has something to do with his splitter mostly running in on righties and having now pitch to break away from them. Hence, a slider will only help him.

Considering his relative successes so far, a slider can only help.

Mariners35 on
May 31st, 2012 7:52 am

Any other moves that _should_ happen on the off day today, yet won’t due to Wedge bloody-mindedness, no trade partners, etc.?

Typical Idiot Fan on
May 31st, 2012 9:53 am

If you’re thinking of calling up Wells again, they can’t for another couple of days. They could call up Peguero if you wanted.

Ichirolling51 on
May 31st, 2012 10:29 am

So who gets removed from the 40 man? My bet is they will just move Sherrill to the 60 day DL? But I’ve been surprised before.

Mariners35 on
May 31st, 2012 10:48 am

If you’re thinking of calling up Wells again, they can’t for another couple of days. They could call up Peguero if you wanted.

I’m not going to troll Mr. Cameron by suggesting Peguero here. I know better than that.

I was honestly asking the open-ended question. Great feelings from yesterday’s football score aside, the Thursday off day is a traditional time to do some housecleaning. I’d think there might be unused, struggling or deadweight guys to try to shuffle today.

Or hey, if they can make room on the 40-man, sign Jamie Moyer for sentimental reasons and get him set for next Friday’s home start…

Though, looking at the schedule, there are a couple more Thursdays and a Monday like that, coming up this next month. I suppose there aren’t any impact players hanging about that would help push the team to .500 by the ASB, that need to come up now now now.

No, it’s not likely that Delabar’s true talent HR rate is 3 per game, but I’m also not comfortable just tossing out the 8 HRs entirely.

Even if you did, though, righties have an OBP of .340 against him. That’s just too high. I’m glad he’s gotten most of his outs via the K, and sure, his BABIP against lefties will rise, but there’s no reason for righties to get on base at an above average clip against him. He’s a very small change away from being a great set-up guy. Let him work on those things in AAA, especially since he’d be buried in the big league pen. The right-handed set-up guys now include League, Wilhelmsen and Pryor. He needs to pitch, not simply hang out with Iwakuma.

kinickers77 on
May 31st, 2012 1:57 pm

Looks too late to trade League high, eh? Typical Mariners.

You think we could get anything of value for him now?

OffensivelyChallenged on
May 31st, 2012 5:58 pm

Hope Pryor gets an inning tomorrow. The pitching on this team looks to be good for years to come. If the offense could start clicking on a consistent basis we might win a pennant in a year or two. I wish a couple of the young bats would just break out this year. It’s frustrating because you see glimpses of their potential like last night and then 4 or 5 games of awful looking approaches at the plate.

I believe this team will be good just missing a couple pieces.

Can’t wait to watch Pryor pitch.

Typical Idiot Fan on
June 1st, 2012 1:04 am

Looks too late to trade League high, eh? Typical Mariners.

Shit happens. No sense bitching about it now.

You think we could get anything of value for him now?

Maybe. Most likely will have to package him now with someone else to get something we’d really want. Then again, there’s still time. If they get League back righted and he establishes himself back as at least a useful bullpen arm, we might get something of a B prospect. But that’s going to take some work.

eponymous coward on
June 1st, 2012 7:50 am

If they get League back righted and he establishes himself back as at least a useful bullpen arm, we might get something of a B prospect. But that’s going to take some work.

The M’s have tons of B prospects/organizational filler (it’s not like we need potential #5 starters, toolsy marginal OFers, and various bullpen hangers on), so it would likely be a “who cares?” move if we traded League- mostly what we’d get out of it is salary relief.

Brandon Morrow nets us a few years of an inconsistent reliever + a B prospect, plus a toolsy OFer yet to be determined. This should all give us pause when we start praising Zduriencik’s ability to judge talent- that trade was pretty clearly an unforced error if you ask me.

The M’s have tons of B prospects/organizational filler (it’s not like we need potential #5 starters, toolsy marginal OFers, and various bullpen hangers on), so it would likely be a “who cares?” move if we traded League- mostly what we’d get out of it is salary relief.

This is a terrible way to think about he value of prospects. Organizational depth is important precisely because many prospects don’t work out. Because there’s a better than 50% chance a particular prospect won’t make a substantial contribution is not a good reason not to value acquiring the prospect.

But yes, the Morrow–League trade was a bad idea, both at the time and in retrospect, and the most obviously unnecessary and pointless bad move of Zduriencik’s tenure.

eponymous coward on
June 2nd, 2012 2:21 pm

It’s not that getting more organizational depth for the last 3 months of Brandon League’s contract is bad; it’s that it’s not likely to be a big deal in the overall scheme of things, compared to a couple million in salary relief. If we end up with a Dan Cortes or Luis Rodriguez… OK, but it’s not a big deal. League’s not going to fetch much in value.

The salary relief though? I’d sure want it if I was ownership and this season was going to be another downer. Might as well cheap out.